Unamused Muse (Mt. Olympus Employment Agency: Muse Book 2) (16 page)

At the food line, I grabbed a plate and spooned out cheesy noodles while wondering if I could make a break for it and be out the door before he saw me go. I sighed and grabbed a few rolls and more butter. I’d see it through. Dinner had to be over soon. How many plates could he possibly eat?

Three was the answer, as it turned out. After berating me for eating so many carbs when I had no intention of going running with him the next day, he snarfed down the rest of his plate and filled a third.

I ate most of my macaroni—Kelly had given me good intel—and finished the bottle of wine. I never felt more than a little tipsy, and that quickly passed. The wine was as light on actual alcohol as it was on taste.

After dinner, my slightly greasy date wanted to go out for drinks.

“After all, that’s what we were supposed to do last week. You owe me.” He grinned, and a piece of parsley flecked one tooth.

“I’m sorry, Scooter. I have to be at work really early. I’m going to pass on drinks this time.”

He pouted on the drive back—his golf cart was metallic blue and tricked out with custom wheels. He
really
wanted me to ask how much it had cost him.

When he walked me all the way to my door, I thought, for the first time that night, he was acting like a gentleman. As I pulled out my keys, I saw that look in his eyes—a bit nervous and more than a little eager. He licked his lips and came in for the kiss.

I held eye contact with him until the final second, then turned my head in the cheek-slide move woman have been using for eons.

“Thanks for a lovely time, Scooter. Have a good evening.” I made it inside and shut the door before he could object.

“Welcome back. Did you have a good—” Something in my expression made Phyllis stop. “Oh, my. That bad.”

I nodded and threw my purse on the dresser. “I don’t even want to talk about it.

“So, no second date?”

I snorted and didn’t answer. “I just want to call Mom and then go to bed. Today has been way more than one day should ever be.”

I tossed my skirt and sweater in the corner and pulled my bra out through the armhole of my tank. Curled up in the middle of my bed, I dialed Mom’s number.

My stomach knotted and felt queasy. I wasn’t sure if it was the crappy food and wine or the prospect of confronting my mother with the truth.

She didn’t answer. That made me nervous, too. It was after ten. Where would she be? I left her a message to call me back right away and hung up.

Mom never left the house after dark. Something was wrong, I was sure of it.

Chapter 16

I tried Mom’s number again before I left for work and left another message when she didn’t answer.

“I’m sure she’s fine, Wynter. She’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself.” Phyllis didn’t sound nearly as sure as I needed her to sound.

“I’ll try her again from the office.” I winced. My head pounded like a marching band had taken up residence, and my mouth tasted like drain cleaner. “I’m sure it’s nothing. She probably turned the phone off to meditate or something.” I didn’t sound as sure as I needed myself to sound either.

Parker greeted me with a huge grin. “There she is! The lady of the hour. Scooter called last night after he dropped you off and would not stop talking about you.”

I stared at him. “I find that to be pretty unlikely.”

“What, that he was crazy about you? You’re awesome.”

“No. I find it unlikely that he talked about anyone but himself.” I set my purse on my desk and settled into my chair. “You owe me so big right now, Parker. But first, a cup of coffee will help keep me from killing you.”

He frowned. “You’re kidding me. Scooter’s a good guy.”

I nodded. “So he says. At length.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. “Do we have any aspirin around here?”

“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. He’s not like that, honest. I never would have….” He stopped his eyebrows drew together in worry. “Let’s get you something for that headache. Hang on.”

He disappeared into the kitchen and let me be for a few minutes. While I waited, I tried my mom again.

This time, she answered on the second ring. “Wynter! Sweetheart, how are you? I just got home and heard your messages. Are you alright? What’s wrong? Did you lose your job at the bank? Come home, darling. I won’t judge.”

“What? No! I’m at work right now. And I don’t work at the bank anymore. Remember? I work for the agency.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Oh. Alright. Well, what’s wrong, then?”

I took a deep breath and blurted it out. “Mom, I’m working for Hades.” I waited.

“Hades? Is that the name of this agency you’re working for?” She sounded genuinely puzzled.

“No, Mom. The agency is Mt. Olympus. I’m currently on loan to the Underworld, working directly for Hades.” I pressed my fingers against my forehead in an effort to keep my pounding head from exploding.

She was silent for a moment. “Wynter, have you been drinking?”

I sighed and let it go. “Where did you go last night, Mom?”

“Oh, I stayed with Terry. At her farm. She thinks I should go live with her, and I think it might be a good idea. She’s bringing a real estate agent over this afternoon to talk about selling my house. She might already have a buyer.”

“What? No. No, Mom. You can’t…don’t do anything until I come home, okay? Promise me? Promise me you won’t do anything until you see me.”

“Of course, sweetheart. Terry says there’s a room for you, too, if you like. You won’t have to worry about the bank anymore. You can quit and come work on the farm with us.”

“What are you talking about? Who is she? You’ve never even talked about Terry before, and now she wants to run your whole life. And mine.”

“Oh, she’s from my gardening club. I’m not sure when we met….” Her voice drifted off, as if she was trying to remember something important but couldn’t quite get it. “Anyway. I won’t do anything but talk to the agent today. When will you come home?”

“As soon as I can, Mom. As soon as I can.”

~*~

With a few aspirin and a cup of coffee in me, my headache began to ease. Parker and I didn’t speak further about his disgusting friend. He was as surprised by his friend’s behavior as I had been. Apparently, I’d had a magical effect on the guy.

Not all magic was good magic.

Hades came through our office and went into his own when I was nursing my second cup of coffee. This time, I had no qualms about knocking on my stepfather’s office door.

At first, I was greeted by silence from the other side. I raised my hand to knock a second time, but Hades answered in a gruff voice, inviting me in. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

“You look serious.” He narrowed his eyes, regarding me carefully. “You’re not going to tell me you’re eloping with Scooter, are you?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Do you know about everything I do?”

He smirked. “Mostly.” He pointed at the chair across from him. “Have a seat. You look like death.”

I gave him and his terrible joke the side-eye as I settled into the seat. Hades should never make jokes about death. It seemed inappropriate somehow. Or maybe it was because he’d made something like a dad-joke. I wasn’t ready for him to act like my stepdad, and telling bad jokes wasn’t the best way to make me comfortable with it.

Or maybe I was just cranky because of the hangover.

“This isn’t about Scooter.” Saying the guy’s name again out loud made my stomach queasy. “This is about Mom. I think she’s in trouble.”

His eyes flashed with worry. “She was fine last I checked on her. What’s wrong?”

“Do you know who Terry is?”

“No.” He shook his head slowly. “Who is he?”

“Not a him. A her. She’s convinced Mom to sell the house and move in with her. They’re meeting with a real estate agent today.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “She loves that house.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Where does this Terry live?”

“I have no idea.”

He frowned and sat for a moment, staring at me, his fingers steepled over his lips while he thought. “It’s time to end this charade. She needs to come home.”

He sighed and swiveled to his side desk to boot up his computer. It made a churning, grating noise that didn’t sound healthy. Or new.

“You really should upgrade the equipment around here.” I was pretty sure the computer had been made in the ‘90s. No telling how old the software was. “For that matter, Mt. Olympus is pretty behind the times, too.”

He grunted. “I’m sending you home. But first, go see Otis. He’ll whip up something that will clear your mother’s head. When you’re ready to go, stop in here on your way out. I’ll have something for you, too.”

I leaned forward with my palms on my knees, speaking slowly. “I’m not feeding her anything to control her mind or force her to come back here.” I didn’t care who he was, he was not going to make me into his pawn to manipulate my mother. He could forget about that right now.

He smiled, his expression kind. “Of course not. That’s not how I want her to come home. I want her to do it because she wants to. But she can’t choose if she doesn’t know who she is.”

That was fair. I relaxed a little and sat back in my seat.

“She knows. Sometimes, at least. Phyllis talked to her about a month ago.” My hands were sweaty, and I wiped them on my pant legs.

He nodded. “Sometimes. Sure. Do you know why she’s so confused?”

I realized my feet were tapping a drumroll on the carpet, and I forced them to still. “I have no idea. But she’s getting worse.” Why wasn’t he more worried about this?

“Of course she is. She’s a goddess.” He crossed his arms over his chest and gave me a long look. “I saw your test scores from orientation. You know what the gods eat, yes?”

“Ambrosia.”

“Exactly.” He turned to the computer and logged into his email account. The screen flickered and took forever to load. “Ambrosia nourishes us. We can eat anything, of course, but without ambrosia, we will, over time, lose ourselves.”

“That’s what’s happening to her? She’s forgetting she’s a goddess because she hasn’t eaten ambrosia in so long?”

He tapped something into an email and hit send. “She will continue to deteriorate, mentally, until she loses herself completely.”

“So, you’re sending me with ambrosia.”

He shook his head. “Outside the realms of the gods, ambrosia breaks down. You can’t take it with you.”

“So, what do I do? I can’t drag her here.”

“Otis is going to bake her something with pomegranates. The fruit was grown on Mount Olympus, so the seeds should reawaken her memory to who she is. The rest will be up to you.”

“You mean you want me to convince her to come back here.” I pressed myself against my chair and scowled. “I’m not going to push her.”

He was crazy. Why was he not understanding me? Not to go all “You’re not my read dad” on him, but my loyalty was to the woman who raised me, not to the stepdad I didn’t know about until yesterday.

He sighed. “Honey, this is very serious. I thought we had more time—at least a few more years. This is the sixth time she’s done this running away thing in the last five-hundred years. She gets sick faster each time. The seeds will give her back her memory for a time. If we don’t get her home to eat ambrosia, she’ll lose herself again. And if it goes too far, she could forget everything permanently.”

“Everything? So, she’ll lose her ability to take care of plants?” He couldn’t be serious. Mom without plants around her would be a completely different person. This had to be a ploy to convince me to get her home.

“No. Maybe. More importantly, if she doesn’t know who she is, she won’t remember us, either. If it goes too far, who knows? She might even lose her immortality.” His voice cracked with emotion. “Wynter, I’ve missed my wife very much. I’m a patient man. I want her to come home through the door like a goddess, not over the River Styx like the rest of the dead.”

I could see the grief on his face. He wasn’t making it up, and it wasn’t a ploy to trick me into something I didn’t want to do. This was serious.

Mom was really in trouble.

~*~

I was distracted on the drive to the mansion. My mind kept drifting off, thinking about my mother meeting with the real estate agent. I worried she’d sell the house quickly and disappear before I could stop her. If she didn’t know who she was, would she eventually forget me, too?

When I pulled into the circular drive, I was a little startled at how easily I’d gotten there while not paying attention. It was as if I were on autopilot. I hopped out and plugged in the cart, then climbed the steps to knock.

The front door flung open, and Lita grabbed me in her arms before I’d made it up the top step.

“Oh, my sweet girl. Is it true? Do you think you can bring your mother back to us?” She squeezed me close and smoothed her hand over the back of my head. “No. Don’t answer. I know it’s all new to you. Everything in its time. At least we have one of our girls home.” She gave another squeeze, then released all but my hand so she could tug me inside.

Otis stood inside the foyer, grinning at me in his apron-covered butler suit. “Welcome home, my girl. Are you hungry?”

I gave them both a shy smile. “You don’t have to make me something to eat every time I come here.” They were both so kind to me. Of course, it made more sense once I found out who I was. Still, I didn’t want to be a bother.

Otis made a chuffing sound. “Ridiculous. You come home, you’re hungry, I feed you. That’s how it works.”

I wondered if this was what it was like to have grandparents. I’d never had anyone but Mom. They weren’t exactly related to me, but the way they fawned over me would make me feel a lot more comfortable if I tried to imagine them as family.

Only, I wasn’t sure how families acted together.

“I hope I’m not interrupting your day, barging in on you like this.” I shifted my feet and glanced around at the spotless opulence. These two were the only ones I’d ever seen there, yet the place was immaculate. They couldn’t be keeping it up all on their own.

“Don’t be silly.” Lita, still clutching my hand, tugged me toward the kitchen. “We knew you were coming. We always know.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant, and maybe I didn’t want to know. With Hades watching Mom and me my whole life, I wondered if there was a crystal ball or a magic mirror somewhere in the house tuned in to my whereabouts.

It was bad enough I had a talking plant keeping tabs on me.

The kitchen was warm and inviting. It smelled like fresh-baked bread and lemons. I settled onto a stool at the counter, and Otis brought me a sandwich and a glass of milk.

“I’m still working on the perfect gift for your mother to bring her back to us,” he said.

Lita cleared her throat. “You mean, to bring back her memories.”

He blinked at her. “Yes. Yes, of course.” He turned away and pulled a loaf of bread from the oven. It was about the size of a serving platter, round and braided so it resembled a wreath. He sniffed it and placed it on the counter to cool. “I think this might be too much. Do you think it’s too much?”

I pictured myself carrying the huge thing all the way through the Underworld, up to Mt. Olympus, and through Topeka in my car. “It is a little large. Does it weight much?”

He shrugged. “Less than ten pounds, I’d guess.” He tapped it with his knuckles. “It’s pretty dense.”

Lita made a tsk-ing noise with her tongue. “I told you that was too much. You always go too far.”

Otis sighed and opened the refrigerator. “What about donuts? Cookies? Ice cream?”